galacticsouth

A Weekend Away

2009-05-27T06:30:00.001-07:00

I'm back from a weekend at Balticon, which was completely lovely - hung out with some old friends, some new friends who already feel like old friends, talked story with them all until I was giddy, and even danced a quadrille. I bought books, and heard good panels, and didn't even go over budget. And now I have more ideas percolating than I know what to do with.... But that's a good thing, right?

(However, I have noticed that it takes me longer to get over staying up til 2AM for 3 nights running. It's a good thing the day job is slow at the moment.)

And when I got home, there was an email waiting to say that my story, "One Horse Town," was being included in the Year's Best Lesbian Fiction 2008.

An excellent capper to an ideal weekend!

Hand of Isis

2009-04-30T05:45:00.000-07:00

When I was two, we lived with my grandparents, and I am reliably informed that I used to terrify my 6'2" 250-pound grandfather by toddling up to him, holding out a kid's book (which he had read to me so many times already that he had it memorized), and saying, "Read it, Grampop! It's good!" I'll try not to do that to you all, but....

Jo Graham's Hand of Isis is out. If you've read her first novel, Black Ships, then you know the kind of writer you're dealing with: elegant, intelligent, and compelling. (And if you haven't read Black Ships, which is a version of the story of Aeneas, told from the point of view of Gull, who is Pythia and a seer.... Well, you should. It's an amazing novel.) Hand of Isis is the story of Cleopatra, told from the point of view of her half-sister and handmaiden Charmian, and it's wonderful - searing at times, tragic, and yet profoundly hopeful. Graham's grasp of period is fantastic, the characters are complex, and it's connected to Black Ships in ways that would be a spoiler to reveal.

Read it! It's good!

Connections

2009-01-05T06:40:00.000-08:00

There was a lovely little story on the editorial page of today’s Globe, recounting the author’s memory of seeing one of his schoolteachers — a Sister of Mercy, in full habit — skating on the school’s frozen playground. I was charmed by the image, and when I read that she wasn’t Sister Charles, as the author had thought, but Sister Gregory, I had to smile. There’s a Sister Gregory at the elderly apartments next door, and that sounds just like her — could it possibly be the same person?

It is. Really, how could I have expected otherwise? This is the Sister Gregory who taught her shaggy little black dog all kinds of tricks, culminating in “say your prayers.” At that command, the dog would put her paws up on Sister Gregory’s lap and lay her head between them — and then peep out from under her bushy eyebrows, bright brown eyes waiting for the praise to follow. Lisa and Vixen used to run into them fairly regularly, and had the kind of dog-connected acquaintanceship that one develops.

The dog, alas, is gone, so I don’t see Sister Gregory very much any more. Lisa ran into her a couple of times after that, expressed sympathy, and told her about the cancer diagnosis, and Sister Gregory was both sympathetic and heartening, promising her prayers. After Lisa died, she stopped me to say that she was sorry, and that she hoped I was bearing up. That particular day, it was exactly the degree of sympathy that I needed — that I could handle — and I was grateful for the kindness, and for her sensitivity in knowing what to say.

According to the article, she’s 84 now, and only just retired, though she remains active in STOP, Sisters Together Opposing Poverty. I’m lucky to have her for a neighbor.

Ice Storm '08

2008-12-16T07:29:00.000-08:00

I had several posts I wanted to make over the weekend, but I was one of the 400,000 people caught in power outages here in New Hampshire. I’ll get to those, but for now.... Let’s just say that it was an increasingly chilly 40 hours.

The ice started on Thursday. I actually went to some friends’ house that evening (and had a lovely time, thank you!), and, though I had to scrape the car when I left, the roads were perfectly clear. I got home without a problem, even though I had to cross a drawbridge with a potentially problematic metal grid in the central span. The dog needed some attention, though, having been crated for longer than usual, so I poured myself a glass of wine and settled down to throw her flippy toy for a while. And in the middle of that - the lights went out.

I had a bad feeling about this from the start. Usually when ice is predicted, I make sure I leave the heat up so that there is residual warmth in the house if the power goes. This time, though, I hadn’t done it. I hadn’t even turned the heat up when I got home, so the thermostat was set to about 61F. I sat there for a minute, hoping the lights would come back on, but nothing happened. My eyes adjusted to the dark. I put the flippy away, finished my wine, and found the flashlight so I wouldn’t trip over stray animals. The lights were out all the way up Middle Street past the stop lights, and all the way across to the junior high school. I could hear the generator starting up in the old folks’ home next door. Yes, I definitely had a bad feeling about this.

So, since there was nothing else to do, I went to bed. At 2 o’clock Friday morning, the lights came on long enough to wake me up. I turned off the bedside lamp that I had accidentally left on and went back to bed. At 8 o’clock Friday morning, the power was out again. There was a big chunk of a tree down in the middle of the street, and it had taken down the wires that led to both houses opposite mine. It lay in pieces, with a scattering of broken ice like glass under it, and a raw pale scar on the tree where the limb had fallen. The street was closed. There were no cars next door at the Victorian monstrosity, nor in the apartment lot across the street.

I walked the dog. Trees were down everywhere, and everything was coated in ice - incredibly beautiful, except for the silence and the absence of everybody. We came back in, I baked some Pillsbury cinnamon twists - I have a gas stove - and I called the local power company. The hotline said to assume that power wouldn’t be restored for several days, and plan accordingly.

Luckily, not only do I have a gas stove, but Lisa’s brother, who has been a Civil War reenactor, has over the years given us many useful historic gadgets. And some contemporary ones: I got out the hand-cranked radio he gave us 10 years ago, got it going, and tried to find out what was going on. Everything was closed, of course, and there was a state of emergency. I kept the oven on, and wore a hat indoors. And a sweater. And my heaviest handknit socks. And a knitted wimple. And fingerless mitts. I have never been so glad to be a knitter!

Around noon, the city came and chopped up the tree that was lying in the road. They tied more caution tape across the road because the wires were still down, and went away. I dug out all my candles and candle lanterns and put them in place for the night: there’s nothing worse than trying to find candles and matches in the dark. I called my usual kennel to see if they had power, thinking maybe I could get the animals there and go to a hotel, but they weren’t answering their phone: no power in Greenland, either. With nothing else to do, I cast on for the fish hat from the latest Knitty, using yarn from stash. (It’s a present for my new niece, or at least for my brother - hey, he gave me a Gummi rat a couple of years ago, so a fish hat seems appropriate.)

At 3:30, I decided I would chop the onions and garlic for chili while I still had light to see. At 3:45, the dog and I walked up toward town to see that power was still out everywhere. We came back home in the increasing twilight, and I saw that the caution tape warning people about the downed wires had blown down. The road was still blocked, but people were ignoring the “road closed” signs, and trying to drive around the tangle of wires. The bigger SUVs didn’t fit very well, and the wires kept being dragged around. I called the city and asked apologetically if they might send somebody to put up something more substantial. They said someone would be there when they could, but to their credit a crew was there within the hour. They walled off the wires with sawhorses and more caution tape. People still tried to go around the roadblocks, but at least when they saw the second set of sawhorses, most of them turned around.

I ate my chili by candlelight, and tried to read, but the light was hard on my eyes. For the first time, I was aware that my eyesight isn’t what it was even 5 years ago: the print trembled and faded in the yellow light, and my eyes itched and burned from the effort of reading. I got out my iPod and battery-powered speakers, and listened to music for an hour or so while I knit some more on the fish hat. I was knitting by touch, mostly, and it was surprisingly easy.

Eventually it was 9 o’clock. I walked the dog, dug out extra blankets and my spare down comforter and piled everything on the bed - the radio said it was going to get much colder overnight - and I went to bed.

And Saturday was cold, well below freezing all day. I put on long johns and two t-shirts and a wool sweater and extra socks and fur-lined boots and the wimple and hat and fingerless mitts and a shawl, and the dog still got a shorter walk than usual. (Not that she seemed to complain.) I huddled by the stove for a while, listening to NPR, and then I decided I would knit some more on the hat. I was closing in on the tail fins now, and quite pleased with my progress.

But it was getting colder. I began to think that staying in the house another night without heat might not be such a good idea. I had options - I could call Lisa’s sisters, either of whom would certainly let me and the animals stay, or I could call a friend in Manchester, where things weren’t so bad, see if she had power and space - but at the same time, I wasn’t all that happy about driving long distances across roads with no traffic signals and wires still down. The batteries were dying in my flashlight - maybe, I thought, maybe I’ll just go get batteries while it’s still light and see what’s going on before I make a decision.

Every other traffic light was working along Route One, and Wal-Mart had power. I got my batteries, and bought a couple of cans of sterno, thinking I could make a heater with them if I wanted to stay in the house one more night. And when I got home, as I was unpacking the bag, the lights came on. I turned the heat up to 72F to celebrate
and slowly, slowly began to remove the layers of clothing.

It was an odd experience, all considered. On the one hand, I was fairly proud of myself for making do - for having the supplies and knowing what to do with them. On the other - well, as I said, I noticed for the first time that my eyesight isn’t up to reading by candlelight any more. At least I can still knit, as long as the project is light yarn and relatively large stitches! But somehow that feels like a more concrete sign of aging than my graying hair or my aching knees. The strangest part, however, was how alone I felt.

Most of my neighbors - many of whom have electric stoves and heat - up and left. There were no cars in the parking lots at the Victorian monstrosity next door, or across the street in the duplex. I saw another neighbor pack up, leave a note on his door, and leave. The people at the old folks’ home had generator power, and therefore heat, and I saw the Red Cross truck arrive with meals, but everyone was, wisely, staying indoors. The few neighbors who remained were doing the same. So was I. It was cold, and quiet, and at night the full moon was very bright, but very cold indeed. And I was lonely. It’s an unfamiliar feeling, because, though I may live alone, I’m not unconnected. And I didn’t like it at all.

I have never been so in sympathy with Bilbo Baggins before: I don’t want adventures, and I don’t like being cold, and I certainly don’t want to be late for dinner!

Ahem

2008-11-03T08:06:00.001-08:00

This summer, Bywater Books in Ann Arbor, MI, ran a web poll asking readers to nominate and then vote for the Best Lesbian Novels of the 20th Century. This is their final list:

The Top Ten
1 Curious Wine
by Katherine V. Forrest
2 Oranges are not the Only Fruit
by Jeanette Winterson
3 The Price of Salt
by Patricia Highsmith
4 Zami: A New Spelling of My Name
by Audre Lorde
5 Desert of the Heart
by Jane Rule
6 Rubyfruit Jungle
by Rita Mae Brown
7 Patience and Sarah
by Isabel Miller
8 The Sea of Light
by Jenifer Levin
9 Beyond the Pale
by Elana Dykewomon
10 Trouble and Her Friends
by Melissa Scott

Needless to say, I'm psyched. It's amazing company to be in - these are books that inspired me to be a better, queerer writer - and I'm really proud and pleased to be considered with them.

Another One Gone

2008-09-28T08:54:00.000-07:00

The trouble with having animals that are close in age is that you sometimes end up with a summer like this one. Tuesday I had to have Tenzing put to sleep. It wasn't unexpected — he's the cat I'd been expecting to lose; he'd been diagnosed with megacolon some time ago, and more recently with a probable bladder tumor — but it's never easy.

We got him from our kennel lady almost 15 years ago. She had a litter of kittens from a rescue cat, and swore to us that they all had homes. So when we dropped off our cats to be boarded, we felt safe admiring the babies. They were adorable: all black, all of them, and active and cheerful. Tenzing came to the front of the enclosure and climbed up the mesh to about chest height, mewing at Lisa. We agreed that we were very glad he was spoken for.

Of course, when we returned from vacation and picked up our cats, we discovered that Tenzing's home had fallen through, and he was all alone in the big enclosure. Once again, he climbed up the mesh door and called to us — and, of course, he came home with us the next day.

We named him Tenzing for obvious reasons: he climbed everything. "Everything" included any human being who stood still long enough, and at that point in his life, he was small and light, light enough that he could get most of the way up a loose pair of (occupied) blue jeans before his claws hit your thigh. Of course, this usually resulted in a shriek and an inadvertent swat, but Tenzing never seemed bothered by being knocked down. It certainly never discouraged him from trying again. At this point in his life, he got the nickname "Bug" — he looked like a little black bug as he scuttled around chasing the bigger cats. Or his tail. Or nothing at all.

As he got older, he became a larger cat, a cat of considerable size and solidity, and he climbed less. (For which we were profoundly grateful.) He did discover that if he jumped into a wheeled office chair, it would go skidding across the floor, and he seemed to enjoy this new trick, but that was about the extent of it. At his largest, he weighed 22 pounds, which was quite a lot when he walked on you in the middle of the night. We got him down to 19 pounds with some effort, but he remained a cat of substance. We called him Tenzing Norgay Bug-sama: he needed a name to match his presence.

Over the last few years, he's been losing weight, slowly at first, and then more quickly. He was diagnosed with megacolon, and had to go on a special food. As he lost still more weight, he rediscovered climbing, and I once again found him in the kitchen sink, on the table, on top of the icebox, once in a bookshelf, where he had pushed the books back to make a nice niche for himself. He spent a lot of time snuggled up next to me, and I tried not to notice how bony he was getting. The megacolon was treatable, and we carried on.

And then he developed what seemed to be a bladder infection, which quickly became something more. He was having more trouble passing feces. And finally he stopped eating, and it was obviously time.

The funny thing is that the surviving cat, Pretty Boy Floyd, has slowly started taking over all Tenzing's favorite spots, and even a few of his habits. This morning, I was making grits with cheese, and Vixen came trotting in to the kitchen to get her taste of the shredded cheese. Normally, Tenzing would have been right there with her, but to my surprise, Floyd took his place. In the past, Floyd has never been much interested in people food. So I gave Vixen her cheese, and put a little down for Floyd, who snatched it — and then did a double-take, as if to say, this is what the fuss was all about??? He eventually condescended to eat it, but I think it was only to keep the dog from getting it.

Random Thoughts

2008-09-22T05:47:00.000-07:00

I seem to be fated to take cute animal photos these days.

This handsome gentleman is Socrates, a resident of Historic New England's Spencer-Pierce-Little Farm. He was kind enough to attend the Jackson Hill Cider Days, one of my favorite Historic New England events - I like it well enough that I've signed up to work it the last 4 or 5 years. I would have been far more flattered by his display if he hadn't done the same to pretty much every female (and most of the males). He really is lovely, though apparently stupid enough that he would keep displaying and forgetting to drink until he passed out. So the farm staff would periodically scoop him up and pour water over his head to cool him down. He'd squawk, and his feathers would deflate - making him about half the size he had been - and then he'd forget what had happened and run over to show off to someone else.

In a completely unrelated note, Friday's paper had an article on overcrowding in college dorms. (Yes, that annual article, though to be fair the situation seems a tad worse this year.) Brown apparently was so strapped for space that it had to put some freshman in with older students, including one poor boy who was assigned to the dorm occupied by a co-ed literary fraternity. His (for-publication!) quote on the matter:

"I was kind of weirded out. I didn't know what kind of person you'd have to be to join a society designed for people who read a lot."

The boy went on to say that he didn't intend to become one of those people.

Huh. Maybe these aren't unrelated stories after all.

My Summer Vacation

2008-08-27T12:19:00.000-07:00

I went on vacation with my mother, my brother, my sister, my sister-in-law, my brother-in-law, and my 8-month-old niece. We stayed on an island in a house in the woods. There were deer in the woods. The deer were waiting for us. The deer were hungry....

This is the picture I took when I first saw the deer:

This is the picture I took when I thought, "oh, cute, the deer are coming closer."

This is the picture I took when I realized I wasn't going to have any problem getting cute deer pictures.

No visitors or deer were harmed in the creation of this blog post.

Living Down to One's Image

2008-08-03T09:06:00.000-07:00

I really try not to repeat stereotypes about men, because we all know they have about as much relationship to reality as dumb blonde jokes — ie., not much. But today….

I shop at several grocery stores because each one has the best deals on certain things, which means that every Sunday I make a quick circuit through town, finishing at the most expensive, which also has the best produce and butcher shop. Because it’s both good and expensive, I’m used to seeing fancy cars behaving badly in the parking lot, but this one was outrageous even by Expensive Market standards: a gigantic V-10 4x4, which to be fair would have taken up part of a second parking place even if the driver had been polite, had ben carefully positioned so that it took up four full parking places. The junction of the cab and the truck bed was centered on the point where the four marked places met: this was not just bad parking, it was bad parking on purpose.

And the thought immediately flitted through my mind. The driver is a small man. In every possible sense of the word.

I metaphorically slapped my hand. Maybe the guy needs a big truck for work — there’s certainly enough equipment in the back that it looks like he might. Maybe he’s actually 6 foot 10. Heck, maybe he's a she, and maybe I shouldn’t be so judgmental.

But when I came out of the store, the driver was getting into the truck. He was gray-haired, balding, and about 5 foot 2. He couldn’t see out the door’s window when he was standing on the ground reaching up to put his groceries in the (pristine and uncluttered) cab. And all I could think was, holy crap, doesn’t he know he’s a stereotype? At which point, he realizes I’m looking at him, smirks, adjusts his crotch, and climbs into the cab and drives away. The truck, by the way, needs a muffler. On all four tailpipes.

I guess that’s why the stereotypes exist.

A Squirrel Story

2008-07-26T11:53:00.000-07:00

As so often happens, sadness has been followed by a day of pure farce. As I was quietly working in my upstairs office, with Vixen (the dog) and one of the cats dozing at my feet, I heard what sounded like something being knocked over downstairs. I looked down, and was startled to see Tenzing sleeping beside me. He was a climber as a kitten — thus the name — and since he’s lost quite a lot of weight in the last two years, he’s rediscovered his Sherpa habits. So normally if I hear strange noises in another part of the house, it’s just Tenzing exploring another route up the North Face of the icebox.

This time, though, it clearly wasn't him, so I decided to investigate. At the top of the stairs, I heard another, more ominous crash, and hurried into the living room to find — a squirrel. A big — nay, gigantic — gray squirrel, hanging from the valance over the main windows, twitching its tail and chirring at the other cat (Pretty Boy Floyd), who was sitting in the middle of the room, head tipped to one side, just… looking at him.

I must have made a noise, because the squirrel leaped into motion, scrambling around the upper edges of the room. It looked like a cartoon animal, legs pinwheeling, tail straight out and bottled — and Floyd lay down in the middle of the rug to watch the fun.

Needless to say, I was less than pleased with Floyd’s response. I picked him up, dumped him down the cellar stairs, and closed the door. I closed the door to the upstairs — which trapped me with the squirrel, but the rational part of my mind told me that I didn’t really want help from the other animals.

And then the fun began. I emptied a wastebasket, thinking I’d drop it over the squirrel. (This used to work with the flying squirrels that got into my folks’ house when I was a kid.) The squirrel threw a dish at me (OK, he just knocked it off the shelf) and raced higher. I grabbed the dog’s towel, thinking I’d throw it over him. He shoved a lamp in my path, and snarled at me. I retreated. I propped open the front door (which took a minute because I couldn’t find anything to prop it with except the snow shovel, and I thought that might discourage the squirrel from leaving if it fell on him) and went back to the living room — and the squirrel was gone.

I swept through the living room and dining room and kitchen, checked the bedroom (you can imagine how much fun that was, then grabbed the leash, went upstairs, put the dog on the leash and brought her back downstairs to see if she could find anything. She looked completely confused — willing to help, bless her sheltie genes, but not at all sure what I was after.

It was gone.

I cleaned up — bought a new lampshade, replaced the broken dish, hung the pictures back on the wall — and then stuffed rags into the hole where I suspected it had gotten in. (I’ve replaced them with copper wool since then.) But I can’t believe that, in a house with two cats and a squirrel-hating — indeed, squirrel-obsessed — dog, the damn thing would come in here in the first place.

Cat Memories

2008-07-25T08:12:00.000-07:00

I had to have one of my cats put to sleep last Friday: a liver tumor which led to a steep and sudden decline. Trouble was her normal self on Tuesday — nearly took my fingers off when I gave her a treat, which was perfectly usual — and then by Friday morning was obviously sick. The vets were unable to get her stabilized, and it became clear that the kindest thing was to let her go.

Trouble was very much Lisa’s cat. We got her from a local animal shelter, where she had been returned for “acting like a kitten.” (The staff were pretty indignant about that excuse, as well as the one who had been returned because “his poop smells,” and were in the process of revamping their adoption procedures as a result.) The minute she saw Lisa, she walked straight up her chest and perched on her shoulder, chirping and purring; she slept on Lisa’s pillow, lay on Lisa’s feet while she worked at home, and was the only cat who would play with Lisa's dog. There’s nothing sillier than watching a 10-pound cat chase a 35-pound dog... unless maybe it’s watching them take turns chasing each other.

After Lisa died, Trouble and I continued to negotiate our sleeping habits. She condescended to sleep on my pillow; I refused to accept a face full of fur in the middle of the night. So every evening we had the ritual Circumambulation of the Human: Trouble leaped onto the bed at ankle level; I said, “good Trouble, stay there.” She proceeded to walk up the bed to the pillow; I pushed her across the pillow, over my head, and off again, and she walked down the bed to ankle level, tail twitching indignantly. And then we’d do it again. And again. Some nights she won, some nights I did: it was undecided up to the day of her death. And, while I may be breathing better in the mornings, I have to say I kind of miss the ritual.

Last summer, I lost Lisa's other cat, Grendel, apparently of old age. He was an apparent Siamese (ie., he looked exactly like one, but we had no real clue as to his breeding, or his age or history) who showed up in our back yard in September of 2001. He was a nasty cat at the beginning, hiding in the undergrowth and rushing out to hiss and swipe at your ankles, and Lisa complained vociferously that she couldn’t garden without the stupid cat attacking her. But then he disappeared for almost a week, and when he came back, he was clearly injured. He couldn’t put one hind foot to the ground, and so we decided to trap him and take him to the vet, which led to the episode I consider the Ultimate Cat Farce.

You see, we successfully lured Grendel (then known as “Mr. Grumpy,” a woefully inadequate name) into one of the dog’s crates, only to discover that it didn’t fit in the back seat of the new car. (It had fit into the old car quite easily.) It didn’t fit in the front seat, either, so we had somehow to transfer a cat who couldn’t be touched from the crate to something smaller and more portable.

We borrowed a Have-a-heart trap, put more tunafish into the back, and arranged things so that Grendel could go for it and nothing else. He sniffed the tuna, glared at us, crawled into the trap — and lay down short of the trigger, stretching himself as far as he could go in an attempt to reach the tuna without setting off the trap. And he lay there for nearly half an hour before we stopped laughing and realized that he wasn’t going anywhere. So I finally got a chopstick and lowered the trap onto him.

We took him to the vet in the trap (wearing my old fencing glove to carry it); the vet anesthetized him in the trap, treated the tire burn on his foot, returned him to the trap, and gave him back to us. We brought him back to the house and turned him loose in the yard: he was not, at the point, a candidate for house cat status. This was when we named him Grendel: he had a den by the back door, and he only came out to eat or attack people.

But he stuck around. Lisa fed him Rescue Remedy in the water she left out for him, and finally he because tame enough that she was able to bring him inside. He was still very shy with strangers (the friends who cat-sat for us got worried once, and finally tracked him down in the cellar, where he was visible only by the red glow of his eyes in the flashlight beam), but he became very affectionate with us, and particularly with Lisa, whom he allowed to pick him up and cuddle him. After she died, he liked to lie on the back of the sofa behind me — right in the light I needed for my knitting — and purr and nuzzle me if I showed any signs of wanting to move him.

I’m now down to the regulation two cats per lesbian (plus the dog, of course), and no longer qualify for crazy cat lady status. But I miss the pair of them.

Marriage a la mode...

2008-06-17T15:54:00.000-07:00

This link was posted to my knitting list, and, given my current project, I naturally had to try it. I can't say I'm totally surprised at the results....

As a 1930s wife, I am
Average

Take the test!

As a 1930s husband, I am
Very Superior

Take the test!

It's an interesting survey, particularly the parallel questions for husband and wife. For example, the husband is asked if he ensures that his wife has an orgasm during "marital congress"; the wife is asked if she reacts with eagerness and pleasure to the same. (She's not asked if her husband succeeds at his task!) The husband has separate questions for whether or not he smokes or drinks, and there's a further check box for "bring drunk." The wife is asked if she "smokes, drinks, gambles, or uses dope." Both, however, are asked about their personal grooming, and both are asked whether they criticize the other in public, or criticize marriage as an institution. In general, though, I think the difference between the two is that the husband's questions are geared to finding out if he is polite and caretaking (does he help his wife's relatives as willinly as his own?), while the wife's questions are interested in whether she is polite and deferential (does she write to her husband's relatives for him?) — and whether she likes children. Interestingly, the wife is awarded extra points for having children, and the more of them, the more points she receives.

I wish I knew, though, whether "wears red nail polish" received a positive or a negative rating.....

In Stitches

2008-05-29T16:10:00.000-07:00

Quite literally, as it turns out. A little after noon today, just after I finished the day’s writing, a sword fell on me.

Now, before you worry too much (or hurt yourself laughing), I have to explain. First, the sword was one of mine, one of a pair that is usually securely fastened to a wall plaque. Second, I had a little help, as one of the cats (Trouble — I’m perfectly willing to name names) ran under my feet trying to beat the other cats to the kitchen, and tripped me up. So I stumbled, knocked the swords off their holder (no, I hadn’t refastened them properly since the last time I’d had them down), and one of them sliced a 3-inch cut along my right triceps. The other one hit the back of my forearm, but just left a little hole and a big bruise.

It really didn’t hurt all that much — the blade was very sharp — but I could see that I was bleeding, and went on downstairs to look in the mirror. (You try looking at your triceps without a mirror!) It was pretty obvious that it was going to need stitches, so I called my doctor, and was told to proceed to the emergency room.

So I did as I was told, drove myself over to the emergency room (I drive an automatic), and presented myself to the triage nurse. Who, to her credit, did not even crack a smile when I told her what happened.

And then the fun began. I knew one of the duty nurses from when she treated Lisa at Hematology/Oncology, so she wasn’t entirely surprised that something this weird had happened to me. The other nurse just kept shaking her head and saying, “now, where was this sword? And it fell on you?” The nurse practitioner who stitched me up wanted to know why I had a sword in the first place, and exactly how it had happened (to be fair, I think she was making sure I hadn’t been in some weird fight) — but then I explained I was a writer and a collector, and it turned out she was a Trek fan, and so we had a nice chat while she put in the stitches. All seven of them.

Actually, the Novocain worked just fine, and I’m only just starting to get a little sore. (Which I will treat with ibuprofen and probably a glass of bourbon once I’m done with this post.) But I’m still left with seven stitches in my arm.

And two nice new Pirates of the Caribbean stickers — Jack Sparrow and Will, both brandishing swords — for having the weirdest story of the day.

Lost Book

2008-05-28T06:04:00.000-07:00

I’ve lost a book. Worse still, I’m not entirely sure I ever actually owned it in the first place. Its title is something like “Everyday Life in the 1930s,” and I know the local library has it; I also know it was so handy that I was going to buy it, but — assuming I actually did — it’s disappeared somewhere in my bookshelves.

This is not a normal thing for me. When my office was downstairs, I had everything arranged by subject: medieval history here, early modern there, classics above military arranged by war, science next to language below books on Japan…. I even had a special place to put the books I was using on a particular project. (OK, that’s an exaggeration. I had a shelf, and then a pile on the floor. But I could find things.) I knew what I had, where it was, and where I’d put it if it wasn’t in its proper place.

When I moved my office, though, other people put my books away, and, though I’ve made a couple of stabs at reorganizing things, I haven’t taken the time to do a proper job of it. And now I’m paying for it.

I think the most frustrating part is that I only need to look at it for about 10 seconds. All I want is to check on 1930s slang for homosexual. I know it’s in the book, I even know about where on the page it is — but I can’t find the book. So, in four minutes, when the library opens, I’m off to borrow their copy. Luckily, it’s only just around the corner, so the whole thing should take me less than 20 minutes, including a quick glance through the new arrivals. But I’d rather be writing!

On the other hand, this is slightly better than the last time I couldn’t find a book. Imagine me walking obsessively from one end of my bookshelves to the other, muttering, “where the hell are my Ming Dynasty eunuchs….”

A Little Pick-Me-Up

2008-04-30T07:58:00.000-07:00

I was feeling more than a bit melancholy this morning when I walked the dog, despite the sunshine and the greening trees. The second anniversary of Lisa’s death is fast approaching, and I just couldn’t manage to ignore it any more. It was exactly the sort of morning on which she would have been up at 6 and off with the dog to walk along with river; exactly the sort of day she’d spend emailing me about plans for the garden; exactly the time of year she’d be downloading past performances and calculating imaginary Derby bets, and not having her here to do any of that is still shockingly painful at times. I had Justin Hayward’s Forever Autumn running through my head - “you always loved this time of year” - and there was a single crow, one for sorrow, staring at me from the fence by the ballfield.

And then, wonderfully, one of the neighbors pulled up alongside us, and rolled down the car window to say hi and to share a silly, stupid joke. I giggled, we chatted, and I felt - lightened. Grieving still, yes, but it wasn’t the burden it had been. It’s still a Lisa sort of day, and spring days like this always will be, but I can see a time when that will be more joy than sorrow. And that is a gift worth celebrating.

Memory Trouble

2008-04-25T07:59:00.000-07:00

The other day, I was sorting through things to go to the recycling, and came across one of the many equine supply catalogs that I get because Lisa used to get them. This one had a photo on the cover of a horse in a fly mask, and all of a sudden I remembered visiting a very nice, very good racehorse who had worn a great fly mask that had green lenses on it, just like sunglasses. But I couldn’t remember his name.

One of the things about being in a long-term relationship is that you (or at least I) ended up off-loading a certain amount of memory. The names of actors, for one: Lisa had genius for remembering them. Where to find certain recipes. Song titles. Plays and playwrights. Horses and horse stories.

I stared at the catalog. We’d seen the horse at Saratoga, Sean Clancy took us to meet him on the backstretch, the same trip that we met Beautiful Pleasure.... Nothing. I got up, went to the bookshelves, and, after about an hour of skimming through various books, I think I have the answer: John’s Call. Who, if I remember correctly, began as a flat racer, didn’t have much success, and was switched to steeplechasing. At which point, he fell on his head, and became a very good flat racer indeed - perhaps so he would never have to jump a hedge again.

But I’m still not sure.

These days, when I run across something that falls into the “Lisa handled that” category, it makes me melancholy rather than miserable, which I guess proves that I’m healing. But I wish I could remember that name!

Milk

2008-04-03T06:09:00.000-07:00

It’s rare that I don’t finish a book. I read quickly, and I read constantly, and if I don’t finish a book, then I have to find something else to read that much sooner. The obvious corollary to this is that I read a lot of reviews, and keep a list of books to watch out for when I go to the library or the bookstore. I’ve been in Victorian mood lately, at least as far as fiction goes, so when I saw reivews of The Sonambulist, it immediately went on the list: right period, it was about a stage magician (though very few novels about magicians match JB Priestley’s Lost Empires), got good reviews — what’s not to like?

In a word, milk.

The title character drinks milk the way private eyes in the pulps drink cheap whiskey, guzzling it by the gallon, chugging it before every action, carrying it with him when he can’t finish his tipple in the bar or at home. And I really hate milk. If I’m not very careful with it, it makes me sick; more than that, though, I don’t like the way it tastes. It’s always sour-ish, no matter how cold you get it; it’s a thin, nasty flavor except when it’s so rich it gags you. It leaves a gross film on the dishes, dries to disgusting flakes — in short, I find milk completely revolting. Every time the Sonambulist chugged down another pint of milk, I got a little more queasy, until finally, about two-third of the way through, I had to stop.

I had just settled down to supper (yes, I read at meals, and I feel a little frisson of satisfaction every time I do it, having been forbidden to read at the table most of my childhood) and opened the book — to yet another description of milk-drinking. This time, the Sonambulist had spilled some down his shirtfront, and it had dried, and I just couldn’t go on. I put that book down, picked up another, and had my supper in peace.

After supper, I stared at The Sonambulist for a while. It was an interesting story, and I did want to know what happened; however, I’d been skimming the milk-drinking episodes for quite a while, and I was still reading more of them than I wanted. It was time to give up. On the next morning’s walk, I dropped it into the library’s return box.

Next in my stack was a biography of John Dillinger: badly written (“providential” used in place of “provincial” — that kind of error), poorly attributed (too many “facts” come from mysterious papers collected by an ex-cop, and then lost in an attic for years), but still infinitely preferable to another glass of milk.

Robins

2008-03-02T10:32:00.000-08:00

Yesterday it snowed, and rained, and rained with snow, and snowed with rain, and then it rained and snowed some more. And during the worst of it, the dog kept running downstairs (I was working upstairs in my office) and barking out the windows. I didn’t think too much of this because — well, to be honest, the dog will bark at anything from blowing leaves to falling icicles, not to mention squirrels, seagulls, crows, passing dogs (known and unknown), and the strange little man who walks down the street talking loudly to himself. (He has been known to bark back, and they both seem pleased by the interaction.) But after a while, she started to sound kind of frantic, and I went downstairs to see what was going on.

She was in the living room, bouncing from one front window to the next, so I pulled back a shutter to see what was going on, and found robins. Not just a robin, or even a pair of robins, but dozens of them, a mob of robins busily stripping the pea-sized crabapples from the two dwarf trees that dominate the narrow flowerbed that is my “yard.”

Lisa planted those trees in her last really good spell, and she’d picked them in part because the nursery people had said they would attract birds, but I’d never seen anything like this. The robins were perched on every possible branch of the crabapples, and there were more waiting their turn on the wires that run along the street. A few were scavenging along the ground, picking up anything the bigger birds dropped. They completely ignored me, standing in the window with the shutter wide open. All right, one of them cocked his head to make sure I was really confined, fixing me with one beady black eye, but then he went on eating. As I stood there, they stripped the tree bare — there truly wasn’t a single apple left behind — and then swirled away into the snowy rain, bright red breasts against the gray sky.

I’m still smiling, thinking about it.

Periphery is available!

2008-02-23T12:38:00.000-08:00

Periphery, the Lynne Jamneck-edited collection of erotic lesbian SF, in which I have a story, "The Rocky Side of the Sky," is now available on Amazon. After the delay caused by the sale of Haworth Press, and the company's subsequent decision not to continue publishing fiction, it's nice to see the collection in print!

A not-so-shaggy dog story

2008-02-13T14:14:00.000-08:00

I watched the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show the last two nights — another family tradition, particularly since someone in Lisa’s dog club had a dog go Best of Oppposite a few years back. The dog slept through most of it, while the cats and I watched with some attention….

The best part, though, was during the Toy Group, when one of the diminutive champtions — I think it was the toy fox terrier — was introduced as "Louisville Slugger." (His father was "Grand Slam.") Not only is this funny to start with, it reminded me of one of our trips to Chicago, and the first time I ever saw a Chinese Crested.

We were staying at a hotel near the lake, in a neighborhood that clearly was full of dogs and dog-lovers, and that particular morning we'd decided to find coffee and croissants somewhere in the area before we headed off to the conference. Our search for an open coffeehouse led us past a small park, and as we passed it, we could see a guy behind the fence who looked like — well, like Tony Soprano's Chicago uncle. A goombah. A great big dark-haired dark-chinned man in polyester slacks and a polo shirt with a sports jacket over it, and a diamond ring you could see from across the street.

And as we tried not to giggle, he reached into his pocket, pulled out a plastic bag, and stooped to clean up after a dog that was too small to see behind the parked cars. A bulldog? A small pit bull? Some vicious little dog of uncertain lineage and obvious menace?

He carefully deposited the bagged waste in the trash can, then pulled out his handkerchief and picked up the dog: a Chinese Crested — a hairless Chinese Crested. He wiped its feet and the puffs of ankle fur, then settled in in the crook of his arm. It bounced up and licked his chin, bracing its now clean paws on his jacket, and he gave it a hug and walked on.

Naturally, we spent the next couple of days inventing stories about the man. Lisa found a name for him, but she never did get the chance to use him in a story. But now…. If you read anything of mine that includes a semi-retired mobster named Sonny Trentacosta and his little dog Louie (short, of course, for that well-known Chicago gangster's weapon, the Louisville Slugger), well, you'll know where they came from.

Story Sold!

2008-02-05T06:15:00.000-08:00

Well, it's official! My short story, "One Horse Town," has sold to Catherine Lundoff's anthology of lesbian ghost stories, Haunted Hearths. I'm extremely pleased, not least because I enjoy Catherine's work, and it's been a pleasure working with her on this project.

I understand there's going to be a reading/release party for Haunted Hearths and for Lynne Jamneck's Periphery (in which I also have a story) at this year's Wiscon. Woohoo!

Super Sunday

2008-02-04T07:16:00.000-08:00

Sometimes you end up continuing a tradition long after its original purpose has been lost. This is the case with the Super Bowl and me. Although I grew up paying attention to college football (how could I not, living in Arkansas?), I was never a huge pro football fan, so it was actually Lisa who started me watching the Super Bowl. She was fascinated by the ads, and by the time the game aired, she'd compiled a list of the ones she was waiting to see. (I think she would have been delighted by the announcements last night that repeatedly directed viewers to a MySpace site if they wanted to see all the new ads without having to bother with the game.)

The first time we watched the game together, she wanted to channel surf during the game, and come back for the ads, and for the first time in our relationship, I caught myself saying words like "heresy" and "abomination." Cut away during the game? The gods of football will punish you for that - and even after she pointed out that neither one of us cared who won, the mere idea made me twitchy. So we compromised, and I ended up watching the game (and getting emotionally involved, always) while Lisa read a book and looked up whenever the ads came on.

I'm not sure that the appearance of the Super Sunday Yarn Sale made anything better. Oh, it made me happy, deliriously so, but Lisa grumbed that there ought to be something equivalent for gardeners. (An All-Star Plant Sale?) And even when I made her come along to pick out yarn for herself, she made her decisions in under half an hour and had to stand around while I fondled skeins and made arcane calculations and generally had a wonderful time.

I went to the Super Sunday Yarn Sale yesterday, arriving 3 minutes after the doors opened (and, no, I wasn't the first person there), and spent about an hour and a half picking out some lovely yarn. (From which I intend to make 2 pairs of socks, and two different jackets from the new Knitted Kimonos, a book I really adore.) And yesterday evening, I settled down in front of the TV to watch The Game and The Ads. And, you know what? It wasn't as much fun without the arguments over whether or not we could catch a few minutes of Mythbusters during the second quarter, and without knowing what the big ads were going to be.

Of course, if the Patriots had won, I might feel differently.

What I did on my Thanksgiving vacation

2007-12-13T07:02:00.000-08:00

(Yes, I know. So much for good intentions. But I'm trying to get back to some kind of schedule.)

I spent Thanksgiving with my parents down in Arkansas. It was fun for a whole lot of reasons: seeing family, hanging out with some old friends — one my best friend from elementary school — watching Arkansas beat LSU in triple overtime, and just generally being able to relax.

However, I also spent a couple of days in the library, continuing the research for a magical-realist novel about bootleggers in Arkansas in the 1930s. (This started with a short story called "Mister Seeley," which was published in Haworth Press's anthology So Fey. Because of the sale of Haworth Press, this edition is already out of print and hard to find; we're hoping it will be picked up elsewhere very soon — I'll keep you posted.) Essentially, this research involves reading the local papers, tracking "prohi" violations (that's "prohibition," of course, and I'd love to know how the word was pronouned — or if anybody besides the newspapers used it) and the progress of the drought and the Depression and generally getting a feel for the time. So I thought I'd share this gem, from the Arkansas Gazette, May 6, 1930:

==

Headline: That Is the John Law's Story and He Gets Away With It

Helena, May 5 — Patrolman Hibbs, Helena's biggest policeman, strode jauntily to the witness stand in Municipal Court today.

Judge Pipkin sniffed at his approach and eyed the officer suspiciously.

"I can imagine what your honor is thinking, but I can explain," Hibbs said.

Hibbs said that he and two other officers engaged in a liquor raid Saturday night. He was stationed beneath a window to intercept any attempt to escape.

Jesse Bee Edwards heard the officers at her door and hastily dumped a gallon of whiskey out of the window, drenching Officer Hibbs.

The officer wore his saturated uniform to court this morning. Judge Pipkin fined the woman $50 and costs.

==

I'm hoping "costs" included cleaning his uniform.

Where were we?

2007-10-29T08:21:00.001-07:00

Somehow the summer just slipped away….

Well, actually, I know where some of it went. My main part time job made some major computer changes that didn’t go as planned (yes, I hear those of you who work with computers laughing hysterically), and then I had some chances to do some extra work at my seasonal job — good extra work, like creating a tour of the servants’ areas of one house — and at the same time I was trying to get some writing done (a couple of short stories, and outlines for two novels) — and the next thing I knew it was October. The end of October.

Time to put the air conditioners away, and the storm windows down. Time to get out the winter clothes. Time to finish the sweaters I’ve been working on because it’s getting pretty cold in the mornings when I walk the dog, and it isn’t really all that warm when I go to work. Time to start thinking about the holidays....

OK, maybe that last is going a little too far, but then again, maybe not. I do need the time to think about what I want to do this year. Last year, I didn’t do much of anything, and that was good, or at least the right thing for me at that moment. This year, I need to make those decisions all over again.

That sounds as though I’m dreading it, which isn’t exactly right. There are some things I’m looking forward to, like planning another of our old open house/parties — though I think I’m going to move that to around New Year’s, partly to acknowledge that things have changed, and partly because there’s no way I can do a big party in December. But I want to have that get-together again, because it was fun to host, fun to prepare, and a good thing to move forward with. There are things I’m ambivalent about — whether or not to have a tree, for one. I’ve always enjoyed the bright lights; on the other hand, setting it up and taking it down by myself isn’t very appealing. Lisa loved Christmas the same way she loved birthdays, loved the excuse to celebrate, to decorate, to party. I enjoyed those things, too, but partly because it made her so happy. There are lots of options, and the main thing is that I have to decide what works for me.

And that requires time and a certain amount of energy. I have no obligations here at the house: no kids, no family pressure, no need to do anything except what I want. I haven’t had that much freedom in years, and it’s like any unused muscle, it’s taking me a while to get back into shape. So I figure if I start now, think about these things a little at a time, I’ll be ready to deal with the holidays — and with any bigger decisions that come along.

In the meantime, the leaves are turning. I drove to Manchester yesterday, and the color was spectacular, gold and scarlet and orange vivid against a bright blue sky. I came back in the dark, and the moon was rising, just past full, enormous and pale, pale orange, balanced on the horizon. It was beautiful, and it made me happy, and that was enough, to be in that moment. I’ll make decisions tomorrow.

Overheard at the Tennis Courts

2007-07-27T14:55:00.000-07:00

I walked the dog over by the tennis courts this morning, and realized that it was time for the 5 to 7 year olds' group lesson. The teacher was a very cheerful young man who was encouraging them in all the right ways, and clearly enjoying his job and the kids. And then, as I got closer, I heard him tell one of the girls - a tiny little blonde thing all in pink and ruffles - to get ready. She immediately lifted her racquet into a baseball pose, and the teacher said, "No, no, not like Manny Ramirez."

"David Ortiz!" The girl sounded totally indignant.

"OK, not like David Ortiz," the teacher said. "You want to be like Pete Sampras, or Roger Federer, or Venus Williams -"

"I want to be David Ortiz." The girl dropped her racquet and put her hands on her hips: not a kid to mess with, clearly.

There was a little silence, and then the teacher said, "OK, but you have to be David Ortiz playing tennis..."

I didn't hear what happened after that.